


Her Father's Eyes

by catisacat



Category: Borderlands
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-19
Updated: 2016-02-19
Packaged: 2018-05-21 14:04:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6054367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catisacat/pseuds/catisacat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack's made Angel hate herself but Gaige is going to do her best to fix that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Her Father's Eyes

Angel has avoided mirrors all her life.

Well, maybe not all of it.

Just since she was about twelve, when her father had dragged her away from society to live in a little box. That was when she’d learned to hate her own reflection.

She always carefully combed her hair without being able to see it, letting thick black locks fall stylishly over one eye like all the beautiful women in the magazines. She hoped it looked at least half as good.

Granted, there was no one to see it. Or at least no one whose opinion she cared about.

Jack didn’t seem to object to her fashion choices. Hell, they almost seemed to benefit him that dark day when he’d shaved off the right side of her hair. He said that was the fashion but Angel knew that even though that was possibly true, he had ulterior motives for it.

She was proven correct when the ports were installed not a day later.

Of course, she’d never seen the ports. They’d only prompted her to avoid mirrors entirely. She often found her fingers drifting against the cold and foreign metal in disgust.

A life of dodging reflective surfaces was awkward but she’d become accustomed to it.

Jack’d always told her she’d die if she was disconnected from the machine. She felt no reason not to believe him. And it hurt, there was no lie there. It felt like getting pieces of your soul ripped out from a thousand places at once. But as she lay on the ground in front of the Vault Hunters she found herself still alive. Weak but alive.

Strong arms had hoisted her off the ground as they took her from the facility. She was barely awake in Axton’s arms. Just enough to hear Gaige and Maya telling her it'd be all right.

She felt her hair start to slide off her face. Using the last of her strength she carefully brushed it back across her face.

A few minutes later she learned exactly how much she didn’t like fast travelling.

Almost liked it less than spending the next few weeks being poked and prodded by Dr. Zed.

Only almost.

All of the Vault Hunters came to check up on her but none more than Gaige.

Angel had woken up more than once to find the redhead sitting next to her hospital bed, usually fiddling around with some broken little device. The mechanic was always more than happy to chatter on about it to her once she woke up. The Siren didn’t understand much at first but was quickly finding herself getting fairly knowledgeable on robotics. Mostly she was just happy to have someone her age to talk to. Getting some useful knowledge was a nice side effect though.

But while she more than appreciated the company she started to realize the downsides to not being able to look in a mirror. She developed a habit of sleeping on her back to keep her hair neatly in place. Or at least what she hoped was in place.

By the time she was let out of Dr. Zed’s clutches she was feeling better. In no small part due to the fact Jack had died at the hands of the Vault Hunters. More specifically that silent assassin, Zer0. She didn’t know what to make of them but frankly now, in her eyes, they were all but her personal hero.

Part of her felt like she shouldn’t be so happy about Jack’s death but that part was absolutely smushed by the massive relief she felt.

She eventually learned something she couldn’t dodge though. Photographs.

It hadn’t been a problem when she was still trapped in Jack’s clutches. He was a big picture guy but not, you know, a guy big on pictures. She really couldn’t remember a time past age five when he’d stopped and pulled a camera on her.

Even when he was a normal dad, he just wasn’t one to worry about preserving the past. She always wondered if he regretted it. Some dark place in her heart hopes he did.

But the photograph… well, it had been the first view of herself she’d seen in almost a decade.

After the CEO’s violent end things calmed down in Sanctuary. The much more casual nature of the Pandorans came out, she found herself lounging around while everyone messed around with their personal interests.

Angel learned that wasn’t always in her favor though as Gaige finally got the time to complete fixing the little electronic she’d been fiddling around with.

The Siren had blanched when the mechanic had raised the finally repaired and heavily modified Hyperion phone high above her head. The lens was pointed at them as she remained trapped at Gaige’s side, a strong metal arm keeping her in place as the fake shutter click sounded.

She cringed as the redhead brought the phone back down, holding it between the two of them to look at the picture.

Angel’s stomach sank. She didn’t even know where to start. It was the first time she’d seen the ports in her skull. Ugly and jarring against her worrisomely pale skin. Her freckles weren’t cute anymore. She thought they looked like faded flecks of mud splattered across her face. While not as pronounced as her father, her jawline was still sharp and jutting. The skin around her eyes was heavily discolored, it almost looked like she had a matching set of black eyes.

But that was the thing, the worst thing. Her eyes didn’t match. When she’d looked up at the lens her hair had slid off her face revealing her left eye. Green. Not blue like her right one.

Heterochromia, just like her father.

“Hey, you should smile in the next one. Show off them shiny pearly whites,” Gaige said nudging the girl with a wide grin of her own plastered across her face.

However, the dead silence of the Siren spoke volumes. Her hair had fallen back across her face, hiding her expression from the redhead. A soft sob shook her shoulders though, making her distress apparent.

Gaige balked, not having any inkling of an idea why her new friend was upset as she asked dumbly, “Uhhh, you, uh, you okay there, Angel?”

The Siren looked up at her with her mismatched eyes full of tears.

The Mechromancer held the thin girl while she sobbed into her copper hair, listing off all the things wrong with her. The redhead wasn’t a stranger to the concept of disliking something about your own appearance but really didn’t know how to deal with someone who hated the entire package.

Especially when she thought every inch of Angel was ethereally beautiful.

Gaige stumbling over her own thoughts for a few awkward seconds while the tall girl quietly cried, pale blue eyes transfixed on her own image still proudly displayed on the small screen.

Eventually the girl got her brains collected enough to respond. Not eloquently. But she was talking.

“Fuck no, fuck that! If you’re ugly then I gotta look like a skag’s ass! Look, we can’t help looking like our parents but that doesn’t… that doesn’t mean we’re necessarily like them, okay? And it's not like your dad was called Ugly Jack or anything.”

Angel squirmed, looking at best a shade or two less upset.

Gaige scratched the pointed ends of her claws metal hand against the back of her neck. Being mushy and comforting wasn't exactly her forte. Hell, she didn't even have basic skills in it.

“Look it's just… it's in your head okay? Nobody else thinks you're ugly and we're not sitting around judgin’ you for looking like your dad. You're like… you know… absolutely gorgeous.”

Angel looked up sharply, blue eyes wide with surprise. She wasn't used to compliments, let alone ones about her appearance. She studied the other girl's face for signs of deception. Gaige forced herself to remain stalwart, ignoring her teenage instinct to fold like a house of cards and try to escape the situation. She was an adult now. Can't do that shit.

It worked. Angel curled up into a ball but seemed to believe the redhead. If her red cheeks and averted gaze were any indication, at least. Both intensified as the mechanic smoothly slid up next to her, cold unfeeling robot arm snaking around her shoulders.

Angel's reaction had renewed Gaige's ample confidence, “I'm fact, I think you're the prettiest girl here. Myself excluded of course.”

The other girl giggled quietly at that while one bright green eye winked at her, its owner jostling her. She shifted, carefully intertwining one of her slender hands into the Mechromancer’s calloused one. It was promptly squeezed.

Gaige gently pushed Angel's falling hair behind her ear, “Maybe we can get you a new haircut? Total waste to hide half of yours face from the world.”

Angel finally spoke up, thin fingers getting her hair to fall over her green eye again, “Maybe… just… maybe not yet. Maybe eventually.”

“Alright, I can take a maybe. Caaaan I get a yes on a pizza date at Moxxi’s? Maybe even a hell yes? Or just more maybes?”

The Siren pretended to think about it, “Gee, I don't know. Let's just go with maybe for now.”

Gaige only pressed in before tugging the other girl to her feet, carefully hooking a few clawed fingers into her belt loops to prevent escape, “I dunno, that sounded like a yes to me!”

Angel didn't fight it, laughing as she was hauled out of her room and towards the door. Black hair slid away from her face again. Before she could push it back into place Gaige planted a kiss over the exposed green eye causing another chorus of giggling from Angel.

She decided maybe her mismatched eyes weren't all that bad.

**Author's Note:**

> I always intend to draw pictures from my fics but this time I drew a fic from one of my pictures!
> 
> Drawing in question: http://catisacat.tumblr.com/post/134698734722/what-if-the-reason-angel-covers-the-right-side-of


End file.
